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Well, another shoot completed — all for a whopping two-and-a-half hours of video footage. This compared with the eight hours we’ve captured at each of the prior institutions. And they were a lot closer. But, of course, we had to have a California hospital in the mix, for the sake of credibility. Sorry if I sound a little bitter, but I’m tired, and I’m just about to hop on the red-eye.

We did end up making the flight out of Oakland, and in plenty of time — we made up some time by being able to ride in the carpool lanes from San Jose. The shoot itself got off to a late start — sure, the FedEx office opened at 8:30, but they didn’t finish unloading the truck until after 9:00. But we were able to compress the schedule a bit and finish up on time. Whether we’ll be able to actually do anything with that little footage is far from certain, but we’ll see.

To be honest, other than the whole part about being tired, I’m really not all that upset. If a California hospital’s what we need to sell the piece, I can live with that. And unlike at the other hospitals, we actually managed to capture a decent amount of B-roll this time around. And sure, I’ve got a two-hour layover here in Long Beach, but the terminal has Wi-Fi access, so who’s to complain?

Let’s see, so what have I missed...? Out in the real world, Richard Cohen’s got a nice commentary on the whole Duh-bya Iowa campaign propaganda fiasco. Now, I have not seen the ad in question — I’ve seen only snippets broadcast as part of various news stories (segments of his State of the Union speech and the voiceover tag line that people are attacking him for “attacking the terrorists”). But what strikes me as most astonishing is that apparently, little George thinks that the people of Iowa are as stupid as he is. I suspect I’ll see the full ad once it starts airing this weekend, but from what I have seen, anybody who would fall for this ad’s flagrant “spin” is positively certifiable.

Sorry, Georgie — as a rule, I’m not one to defend the intelligence of your supporters, but I think you’re in for a rude awakening. Nobody’s that dumb.